414 results about "Satellite radio" patented technology

The invention provides a method for establishing communications with a quiescent mobile vehicle. A satellite radio system broadcast channel is monitored for a command signal. The command signal is extracted from the broadcast channel. A cell phone in a telematics unit is powered up based on the command signal.

Services for a vehicle or fleet of vehicles can be ordered, renewed, modified, managed, configured, and/or cancelled through a common interface. Services may be managed remotely from outside the vehicle as well as from within the vehicle. For example, the driver of a vehicle could access a secure web site from their home computer to subscribe for satellite radio services, cancel a subscription for global positioning information, renew a contract for broadband Internet access in the vehicle, and modify a relationship for remote vehicle security services. Each service that is registered with the system can possess a different status. Such functionality allows devices necessary for various services to be pre-installed in the vehicle. The service management system can also store user profiles that reflect user preferences and patterns of behavior with respect to how the services are performed and configured.

A graphical user interface for use with a multi-media system, such as those found in vehicles, that includes a rotary knob, a graphics control circuit and a graphics display with a graphical depiction of a portion of the rotary knob. The graphical depiction includes a menu wheel and at least two menu items located near its periphery, where each of the menu items corresponds with a device, system or network (i.e.—satellite radio, navigation system, DVD player, video game system, wireless internet, etc.) with which the multi-media system can interact. Furthermore, rotation of the rotary knob by a user causes a corresponding graphical movement of the menu items along a periphery of the menu wheel.

An aircraft in-flight entertainment (IFE) system includes a headend unit, and a plurality of seat electronic boxes (SEBs) spaced throughout the aircraft. The headend unit includes a digital satellite radio receiver. A local area network (LAN) connects the digital satellite radio receiver for providing digital satellite radio signals to the SEBs. The IFE system further includes a plurality of passenger control units (PCUs) connected to the plurality of SEBs, with each PCU permitting passenger selection of the digital satellite radio signals.

A system and method for peer based localization system using radio technology, such as Bluetooth or Wi-Fi ad-hoc technology that enables mobile devices such as cell phones, smart phones, laptops, handheld communication devices, handheld computing devices, satellite radios, global positioning systems, PDAs, etc. to discover their physical location relative to one another. In addition, the peer based localization can use a plurality of radio technologies to increase the accuracy of the physical location estimates. Additionally or alternatively, the peer based localization technique can be combined with infrastructure based location techniques, such as triangulation, GPS, or infrastructure based Wi-Fi localization in order to transpose virtual coordinates into physical coordinates.

Broadband data transmission systems and methods that provide point-to-multipoint broadcasting capability to implement Internet access and multimedia distribution services for a very large number of users. An exemplary system comprises a two-way communication link having at least one satellite, at least one user terminal that has two-way communication with the two-way communication link, and at least one gateway that has access to data and has two-way communication with the two-way communication link. The two-way communication link may comprise a low bandwidth two-way communication link, or a low bandwidth request link and high bandwidth data broadcast link. The high bandwidth link preferably broadcasts a wide area coverage beam to allows the requested information to be received by many terminals. The terminal and gateway may each include a cache. Software at the gateway operates to deliver requested data and related data to users using the user's request history and/or user profile. The requested (and related) data (such as a predetermined number of most-requested web pages) may be broadcast at predetermined intervals to simulate real-time broadcasts. Another exemplary system comprises a terrestrial communication link for communicating data requests, a satellite broadcast link for transmitting the requested data, at least one gateway having access to data that communicates with the terrestrial communication link and the satellite broadcast link, and at least one user terminal that communicates with the terrestrial communication link and the satellite broadcast link that caches the requested (and related) data transmitted by the satellite broadcast link. Broadband data transmission methods are also disclosed.

A dual-radio communication apparatus (100) has a first radio device (110), such as a Bluetooth radio, for use in a first frequency band, and a second radio device (120), such as a Globalstar satellite radio, for use in a second frequency band, which is proximate to the first frequency band. The communication apparatus also has a controller coupled to the first and second radio devices. The first radio device may comprise a frequency-hopping spread-spectrum transmitter. Moreover, the first radio device (110) has a first operating mode employing a first frequency range. The first radio device also has a second operating mode employing a second frequency range, which is smaller than the first frequency range. The controller is adapted to set the first radio device in its second operating mode, when the second radio device (120) is in operation, and otherwise set the first radio device in its first operating mode.

Systems and methods for combining a satellite broadcast system with a wireless system are described. The system comprises a satellite receive antenna and a wireless system device coupled thereto, the wireless system device comprising a wireless network antenna, a wireless radio system coupled to the antenna, a networking bridge coupled to the radio system, and a coaxial networking bridge for coupling a satellite signal on the satellite broadcast system with a wireless signal on the wireless network, wherein the coaxial network bridge enables a device to receive the satellite signal and the wireless signal.

A multifunction printed antenna for wireless and telematic applications. In one embodiment, GPS and satellite radio patch antenna elements are printed on one side of a printed circuit board and AMPS, PCS, GSM and terrestrial radio slot antenna elements are etched in a ground plane on an opposite side of the same printed circuit board. In an alternate embodiment, the GPS and satellite radio patch antenna elements are elements mounted on one printed circuit board and the AMPS, GSM, PCS and terrestrial radio slot antenna elements are etched in a ground plane on another printed circuit board rigidly secured orthogonal to the GPS and satellite printed circuit board. The AMPS, GSM and PCS circuit board can be curved to reduce the nulls at the edges of the circuit board. Further, the edge of the AMPS, GSM and PCS circuit board that contacts the GPS and satellite radio circuit board can have a saw-tooth pattern so that edge currents are reduced.

This disclosure describes a method of payment for parking of a vehicle including determining the location of the vehicle with a wireless communication device. Determining the location includes using a satellite radio navigation system such as GPS with the facility for user provided corrections and avoiding the use of zone IDs. The method also includes automatically extending an initiated parking session with subsequent prepaid time durations until certain predetermined conditions are met. The method includes automatically determining the end of an initiated parking session based on detecting movement of the vehicle away from a parking spot provided the Handset containing the parking payment App has sensed a Bluetooth tag in the vehicle or paired with the built-in Bluetooth system of the vehicle. The method also includes targeted parking enforcement where parked vehicles are identified wirelessly by short range radio beacons emitted by tags placed in/on the vehicles and their session status checked with information downloaded from a parking application server.

A novel and useful apparatus for and method of securely downloading and installing a patch program in a processing device. Each processing device is assigned a unique key embedded therein during manufacture and has knowledge of a shared key. The program patch is encrypted using the shared key and transmitted over a communication link, such as a satellite radio link, to each device. The patch is decrypted using the shared key and re-encrypted using the unique key known only to the device itself. The re-encrypted patch program is stored in nonvolatile memory and upon reset of the device, the encrypted patch contents are read out of the nonvolatile memory, decrypted using the unique key and loaded into patch memory for execution by the processing device.

A content channel is periodically or permanently allocated for use as an “update channel” or “firmware-image download” channel. Any firmware images downloaded to receivers in the system are thoroughly tested prior to being distributed among the receivers. Header information is included in the firmware image when it is transmitted to the receivers, and the firmware image is not accepted for use by the receivers until it is verified on the receiver side. Further, rather than overwriting the existing firmware, the new validated firmware updates are stored separately on the receivers and are utilized when the receiver is rebooted during power-up or by the host controller. If, during this reboot process, an error occurs in the new firmware image, the receiver is configured to revert back to the original firmware image so that it will remain operational, albeit without the updated firmware features.

An aircraft in-flight entertainment (IFE) system includes an antenna for receiving digital satellite radio signals, and an intermediate frequency (IF) down converter is connected to the antenna for down converting the digital satellite radio signals. A plurality of seat electronic boxes (SEBs) are spaced throughout the aircraft. Each SEB includes at least one IF tuner in communications with the IF down converter.

A portable, data storage device, player, playback device, data streaming device, audio player, video player, audio and video player, satellite radio device, cellular phone (with an integrated audio and/or video player), PDA (personal digital assistant), PMP (portable media player), gaming device, handheld and/or mobile device, each embedded with inherent audio and/or video playing/playback capabilities, attached to a docking station or cradle via a single or plural audio/video connectors, wirelessly transmitting audio and/or video and/or control data via infrared optical signals to a set of remote wireless receiving device/s, speaker/s and/or video reproduction device/s.

Digital data objects containing video-based advertisement information are broadcast via satellite and received by one or more integrated receiver decoders (IRDs). Each IRD selectively discards or caches advertisement objects (AOs) in a local memory. AOs that are incompatible with the sophistication level of the IRD and/or user preferences/characteristics are discarded without being cached and AOs that have a lower priority than currently cached AOs are discarded. The IRD arranges cached AOs into ordered lists to schedule them for display and each ordered list corresponds to a unique display position within a program guide. When the user initiates a program guide session, the IRD cyclically displays the AOs in the program guide according to the ordered lists.

A system and method for the efficient use of satellite radio modems and satellite bandwidth is disclosed. In the system and method, a satellite radio modem is used for PRACH requests, each PRACH request occupying 31.25 kHz in a packet data transfer channel. The packet data transfer channels can be either 125.0 kHz or 156.25 kHz. Therefore, four PRACH requests can be transmitted in any one packet data transfer channel. The packet data transfer channels are broken into eight time slots, and one time slot in each channel (either the odd frame or even frame) is dedicated to a PRACH request. A satellite radio modem for PDCH transfers is dedicated for each channel. The satellite radio modem assigned to receive the four PRACH requests is timeshared over 16 channels, thereby reducing the amount of satellite radio modems that would otherwise have been needed, had the PRACH request transmissions utilized a dedicated modem for each PRACH request, for each channel.

The invention relates to a method and a device for synchronizing one or more remote clocks (2) to a central clock (1) via a bi-directional satellite radio link (9.1, 9.2). Time and data signals are exchanged via suitable transmitting (8, 12) and receiving devices (5, 11) at both ends of the radio link. From time difference measurements (6, 14) at both ends a control signal (17) is derived in such a manner that the clock (2) installed directly in the remote ground station devices (11) synchronizes in state and rate to the central clock (1) with the aid of the two-way method (TWSTFT, Two-Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer). The user has access to time signals (18) which directly represent the state of the central clock (1). The signals used for the time measurement are also used for data transmission, resulting in a system operating in real time in which the control deviations (15, 16) of the remote clock are accessible at both ends of the system.

This invention relates to the field of Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and satellite navigation systems such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) and in particular relates to methods of integrating GPS and INS data in order to provide more accurate navigation solutions. The invention provides a method of improving the accuracy of a tightly coupled integrated INS and satellite radio navigation system in cases where the satellite navigation receiver has adaptive tracking loop bandwidths.

A system and method for providing real-time traffic updates to a mobile vehicle communication device is disclosed. Producing traffic incident region coordinate data, communicating the traffic incident region coordinate data to a mobile vehicle communication device, and determining when a traffic incident region coordinate is within a predetermined radius around the mobile vehicle communication device is described. A computer readable medium is also provided including computer readable code for producing traffic incident region coordinate data, code for communicating the traffic incident region coordinate data to a mobile vehicle communication device; and code for determining when a traffic incident region coordinate is within a predetermined radius around the mobile vehicle communication device.